Many believe that first-born children are the most capable and a recent Norwegian study even goes so far as to assert that eldest siblings possess an intelligence quotient (IQ) averaging three points higher than their younger brothers and sisters. A similar phenomenon is playing out in the French red stronghold of Bordeaux, the white wine of which has to struggle for attention. Most white bordeaux is relatively humdrum but there are exceptions - and there is no question that long-lived and outstanding white bordeaux is produced consistently from the region's Pessac-Leognan appellation.

Bordeaux's principal dry white wine appellations include Entre- Deux-Mers, Blaye, Graves and Graves de Vayres but almost 60 per cent of white wine produced in Bordeaux is labelled simply Bordeaux AC.

Graves is French for 'gravel', or 'gravelly terrain', a key soil characteristic contributing much to Bordeaux's success both with white wine and its famed left-bank Medoc reds because gravel provides much needed drainage in a region with rain-sodden winters. Gravel is prevalent in Bordeaux as the region is cut through by two sizeable rivers, the Dordogne and the Garonne, which combine to form the Gironde Estuary. Between these two rivers is the triangular Entre-Deux-Mers (literally 'between two seas') appellation, producing clean fresh and tart, if unexciting, everyday whites. Entre-Deux-Mers will always struggle to produce top-class whites because it is muddy and forested, and vines excel only in dry, sunny years.